


Something Close To Human

by eagle_eyes



Series: The Aro Anya Agenda [1]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Angst, Aromantic, Aromantic Character, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Gen, Internalised aphobia, and I get to choose the characters i project it onto, as if this isn't my highly questionable way of processing shit about myself, it's MY aromanticism, lmao i say character study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-15
Updated: 2020-05-15
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:08:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24205678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eagle_eyes/pseuds/eagle_eyes
Summary: Anya takes D’Hoffryn’s offer. Of course she does, it’s not like it would make a difference. She may have lost her powers but she never stopped being a demon.
Series: The Aro Anya Agenda [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2061282
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10





	Something Close To Human

**Author's Note:**

> I had some Feelings about aro Anya and decided to write some shit about it. Maybe other people will enjoy it, maybe not - I am fully aware that this is a niche that I, specifically, want to read about but who knows if anyone else does!

Anya knows full well the others aren’t going to understand. Oh, they might pretend to - well, realistically _Tara_ might pretend to, while the others just yell at her - and Xander will probably tuck his tail between his legs and tell her it’s all his fault and she’s right to want vengeance, but none of them will actually understand. They have no way to understand how becoming a vengeance demon again is less about the vengeance part and more about the demon part. 

How foolish she’d been, to convince herself she was human. Just because she’d looked like a human, and talked like a human, and acted like something just about close to human, she’d let herself believe that she was one of them. 

But Anya, long before this, long before she’d had her heart broken so badly she was ready to leave humanity behind for good, had not been human. All she had been was a demon who was just that tiny bit better at passing for human than all the others. And she’d played her part well, she thought; a little clumsily, sure, but you’d be amazed how far imitating the other Scoobies and bullshitting your way through social interactions would get you. In fact, she’d been so good at playing a human she’d even fallen in love like one, or something just about close to love.

 _Had it been love?_ She’d thought to herself when she realised Xander didn’t want to marry her, _Had it ever been love?_ Or had it just been yet another facade? She’s always known, after all, that humanity is love. That falling in love is the most human thing, the most important thing of all. It has to be, doesn’t it? Why else would humans put themselves through it over and over and over again despite the pain and heartbreak it never fails to bring them.

Anya had needed to be human, and so she’d needed to be in love. And somewhere along the way she’d convinced herself of an absurd idea: that something as demonic and inhuman as her could fall in love with someone. Could get married and start a perfect little white picket fence family with 2.5 kids and live a normal human life. For some reason, in those dreams she’d always imagined herself as filling some kind of 1950s style housewife role, even though she knew that was absurd and as if she’d ever abandon the Magic Box to become a housewife, even for _Xander_.

And she’d loved Xander, after all, of course she had. Of course it was love. Of course it wasn’t just that he was nice and funny and and she liked having sex with him - there was something _more_. That indefinable _more_ she had no way to pinpoint herself but she’d heard so much about from humans and it had to be there for her and Xander as well because otherwise what did that make _her_? Not a human, for sure. Just another monster who could never belong among humans no matter how much she pretended she was like them.

Love and sex and domesticity and feminity and humanity and belonging. It’s all tangled up in her mind somehow, like the mess of wires behind the TV that neither she nor Xander had ever got around to sorting out and at this point maybe it couldn’t be. Maybe there’s no way to unpick them - maybe all those threads are permanently entwined - you can’t have one without the others. But in that case, what does that mean for _her_? If she’s loveless and belongs nowhere then how can she be human? The simple answer is, of course, that she can’t. Everything she’d clung to so desperately for a sense of humanity crumbled in front of her eyes and all that was left was her true self. Demonic and wild and incomprehensible to the humans she’d called her friends.

Anya takes D’Hoffryn’s offer. Of course she does, it’s not like it would make a difference. She may have lost her powers but she never stopped being a demon. It’s finally time for her to embrace that. She might not be able to love like humans can but she doesn’t have to. There’s so much vengeance demons can do that humans can’t, after all. Once she’s fully a vengeance demon again she can teleport and heal quickly and is stronger and more resilient than any human. Sure, in exchange for all that she has to go back to eviscerating people, which she doesn’t feel _great_ about, but anything’s better than being what she was before. Something broken, that couldn’t do the things demons can or feel the things humans can. 

So she lets the demon win. Lets everything human about her burn away until there’s nothing left. Buries the pang of regret down deep until she can pretend she’s comfortable admitting her own inhumanity. Tells herself it’s nothing to be ashamed of - what has humanity ever offered her anyway?

It’s easier to forget how close she came to being truly human, so that’s what she does.


End file.
